[...] About the first 250 pages encompasses his time before serving as George W. Bush’s vice president. Photos of him hanging out with his grandchildren might be a bit too disarming and uncomfortable to those who wish to perceive and portray him as a Dark Lord of the Sith. For someone supposedly so inhuman and inhumane, he and his wife Liz certainly have contributed enormously to charities. [...]

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[...] is with this understanding, that President Bush sought a more innovative approach to bringing aid to the continent of Africa, at least in one respect: The Food for Peace Program was started in 1954, and for over 50 years, [...]

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Who is “liberal” and who is “conservative”? The labeling is what produces the supposed outcomes. This is an attempt to needlessly politicize charitable giving. It is propaganda, not serious research.

If liberal is defined exclusively as secular, and conservative as religious, then of course more charitable giving (a third of the money in the Brooks study) is going to and through churches (automatically making “conservative” giving bigger by definition). Yet many more or less liberal people also attend denominations like mainstream Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish.

Also, the well-known fact in the fundraising game is that those who give to one thing are statistically far more likely to give to another charitable cause. They get on lists, they get asked, people tend to only give IF asked, and also their giving habit is reinforced the more they do it.

So people who regularly attend a church or synagogue also tend to give more to secular causes. If less religiously inclined people were asked more often, they might give as much too.

Lastly, let’s surmise the best case: that a conservative researcher is not labeling a person a liberal or that he is selectively culling cheapskate liberals. Let’s assume that the “liberal” in the survey is self-labeled.

If you go by votes, about half the country is “liberal” by conservative definitions (they voted Gore/Nader or Kerry). Yet the self-identification is far less–less than a quarter of the people. Folks either don’t necessarily want to admit they identify with the heavily criticized label “liberal” or they literally don’t know what it means.

What you find out is that survey data on issue questions shows that most people are more “left” than their self-labels. For instance, young women overwhelmingly don’t like being called “feminist” b/c it’s been successfully labeled ‘shrill,’ ‘extreme,’ or ‘can’t get a date.’ Yet they favor all of the classic feminist positions on equal employment, reproductive rights, and so on. They even self-report more controversial experiences of rape, sexual harassment, and male bias.

In a similar way, a good Catholic who votes Democrat, uses birth control, favors more economically liberal and socially populist positions (in line w/ Church teachings) is still apt to say they are not “liberal.” Why? Because they are told over and over again from pulpits, radio, and television that liberals are the people who want abortion and gay marriage, against the Church teachings.

So far less is there than meets the eye with this one.

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You guys will remember that Hillary Clinton famously took a tax donation for Bill and Chelseas used underwear. And that Al Gore gave $353 to charity in 1997:

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2006/12/tis-season-of-giving.html

But it’s their INTENTIONS that count in lefty land.

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